I think expressing concern for their psychological well-being because they have decided they don't get as much of a kick out of rowdy behavior, dirty jokes and blue language as they used to would be strange to say the least. While that is not a universal experience it is pretty darn common for people in their twenties, whether or not they have had children. The idea that it should cause concern over somebody's psychological well-being is a stretch so far that you are going to pull a muscle.

Strawman. No-one is saying that not liking swearing and dirty jokes indicates a problem with psychological well being. It is the very abrup and sudden change in attitude and demeanour which has people wondering if there is a deeper problem.

People make abrupt and sudden changes all the time without having psychological problems.

Additionally, they have had the course of the pregnancy plus several months of the "babyhood" to get to this point - I don't know that I would find that sudden or abrupt. It isn't like it happened in the middle if an evening.

I think expressing concern for their psychological well-being because they have decided they don't get as much of a kick out of rowdy behavior, dirty jokes and blue language as they used to would be strange to say the least. While that is not a universal experience it is pretty darn common for people in their twenties, whether or not they have had children. The idea that it should cause concern over somebody's psychological well-being is a stretch so far that you are going to pull a muscle.

Strawman. No-one is saying that not liking swearing and dirty jokes indicates a problem with psychological well being. It is the very abrup and sudden change in attitude and demeanour which has people wondering if there is a deeper problem.

i don't think that Mary and Mark are suffering from any kind of deep psychological problem at all. they have become parents. they are charged with raising their child in the best way possible. this involves limiting swearing around their child, lest he give a very rude response to Granny at Sunday dinner when she asks him if he'd like more peas, causing her to faint face-down into the gravy. this requires them to change their own behavior to something that they want their child to see.

however, Mary and Mark also want to be included in their long-standing group of friends too, while choosing not to get a babysitter. this requires them to monitor and attempt to dictate the behavior of those friends.

they don't have psychological problems, they have these two conflicting desires above. the first desire is pretty common with parents. the second desire is understandable, but not realistic, and usually doesn't go on for 18 months.

People make abrupt and sudden changes all the time without having psychological problems.

Additionally, they have had the course of the pregnancy plus several months of the "babyhood" to get to this point - I don't know that I would find that sudden or abrupt. It isn't like it happened in the middle if an evening.

I think expressing concern for their psychological well-being because they have decided they don't get as much of a kick out of rowdy behavior, dirty jokes and blue language as they used to would be strange to say the least. While that is not a universal experience it is pretty darn common for people in their twenties, whether or not they have had children. The idea that it should cause concern over somebody's psychological well-being is a stretch so far that you are going to pull a muscle.

Strawman. No-one is saying that not liking swearing and dirty jokes indicates a problem with psychological well being. It is the very abrup and sudden change in attitude and demeanour which has people wondering if there is a deeper problem.

i don't think that Mary and Mark are suffering from any kind of deep psychological problem at all. they have become parents. they are charged with raising their child in the best way possible. this involves limiting swearing around their child, lest he give a very rude response to Granny at Sunday dinner when she asks him if he'd like more peas, causing her to faint face-down into the gravy. this requires them to change their own behavior to something that they want their child to see.

however, Mary and Mark also want to be included in their long-standing group of friends too, while choosing not to get a babysitter. this requires them to monitor and attempt to dictate the behavior of those friends.

they don't have psychological problems, they have these two conflicting desires above. the first desire is pretty common with parents. the second desire is understandable, but not realistic, and usually doesn't go on for 18 months.

Nor do I. I agree with your post. I'd just be honest with them - they are severely policing people's behaviour and then getting upset that people don't want to come to a place that requires them to submit to that.

People make abrupt and sudden changes all the time without having psychological problems.

Additionally, they have had the course of the pregnancy plus several months of the "babyhood" to get to this point - I don't know that I would find that sudden or abrupt. It isn't like it happened in the middle if an evening.

Now we're all in our mid-twenties and a fairly boisterous bunch so our choice of activities tends to reflect that. We will usually all meet up together either once or twice every two weeks and go to a bar or bowling or really anything where we can have something to drink and just chat without having to keep our voices down. All the venues and activities we pick are geared towards more adult groups where you can tell a dirty joke or two and not have to worry about annoying the people around you. This has been our habit for a couple of years and its been going well except now the couple with the child are feeling left out.

Unfortunately, the new baby makes having fun at their house kind of impossible. He has a bed time at around 6 o'clock and most of us don't even get out of work until then. Whenever we are at the house, Mary and Mark will constantly tell everyone to be quiet so we don't wake up junior. Whenever anyone tells a dirty joke or a story that has us giggle they'll complain that they don't want junior to hear things like that as it could affect his psyche and they don't want him learning naughty words. There is also the matter of space in which their little two-bedroom apartment just can't hold that many people comfortably. They also have a habit of directing all conversation right back to baby talk which no one is interested in.

Essentially what the OP describes is a sort of informal club, let's call it the "Boisterous Adults Relaxation Society." People are part of the club because they enjoy certain sorts of activities with the other people who are members. It could just as well be a scrap-booking club or a naturist group, or a heavy metal music society. The people involved go out to play with like-minded individuals to have a good time doing the things they all enjoy doing. Although there may be strong personal friendships among group members, it sounds like these are not best-friends-forever-love-me-whatever sorts of feelings.

So if one member of the club decides they now have other interests, it does not follow that the rest of the group should change too, or do anything at all to accommodate that. Rather, the couple who no longer want to meet up to be loud and boisterous need to go and find the "Adults who talk quietly about babies at a convenient time and place" club. Just like if they decided that naturism wasn't appropriate around their toddler, inviting the group over to sit around wearing clothes just wouldn't fly.

The suggestion that the OP, or other members of the group, should try to arrange other activities to suit the Parent members assumes that there is some level of deeper friendship that should be preserved. I didn't get the feeling that this was the case.

The suggestion that the OP, or other members of the group, should try to arrange other activities to suit the Parent members assumes that there is some level of deeper friendship that should be preserved. I didn't get the feeling that this was the case.

This is exactly that I've been swirling around in my head and having trouble finding a way to say. This doesn't sound like true "friendship" to me. It sounds like shared interests. If these folks were all really good friends, they'd "endure" an evening devoid of swearing, drinking, and dirty jokes so they could hang out with their friends in their home once in a blue moon. The fact that no one is willing to do that indicates that the folks with the kids don't really mean that much to them. Nothing wrong with that, but someone really ought to tell the folks with the kids this, so they can move on to people who value them as friends.

okay, another question. how do Mark and Mary know when your group is planning to get together? do you use some kind of social networking site? is that how Mary can pop up and say "oh no, don't go somewhere and have fun, come cram yourselves into my living room like sardines and whisper for a few hours"?

A lot of the planning is done over facebook. We have a group set up especially for those involved in our group where we can post events and talk about plans which is a lot easier to do than having to call up each person and trying to track who can do what. They have access to the group and can see whatever is being discuses. We'll also sometimes just text each other with plans if we don't want to use facebook.

Quote

Regarding the two bolded sections. Many people learn to drink, swear and tell dirty jokes from their peers later in life and hide these abilities from their parents pretty well. It's not an unusual stance for parents to try to cut out their own swearing around their young kids. Even if they feel fine with adults swearing, they may feel like a stream of Fs coming out of a toddler's mouth is a little off.

I have to agree with CakeEater.on this. I learned to drink, swear and tell dirty jokes from my peers late in my high school and in my university years mostly. These aren't things I learned from my parents and most of us go out of our way to be on our best behavior in front of our parents. Just because they don't want us swearing around Junior wouldn't make me think that there is anything wrong with them. They're just overprotective (in my opinion) not psychologically defective.

Anyway, there has been an update and it's a real doozy. Please note that a lot of what happened between Mary and Claire is second-hand information so take it with a grain of salt.

UPDATE

On our facebook group, Claire posted about all of us going to a piano bar this Saturday since her cousin was performing and we could get a nice group discount on drinks and food. The plan was to meet at her and Clark's place first at around 8 pm and then we could all head over to the piano bar since it was only a couple of blocks away from their apartment. Everyone was looking forward to it and accepted the invitation talking about how they couldn't wait until Mary chimed in with this little gem: (This conversation was on the fb wall of our group)

Mary's Post: Gee, it must be nice that you guys can go out and get drunk while the rest of us have responsibilities to deal with. Claire: Sure is! I love going out and being all irresponsible and not trying to push my choices on other people.Mary: Funny. Nice to know who our real friends are. Real friends wouldn't keep scheduling stuff when they know we can't come.Claire: Real friends know that the world doesn't stop spinning just because they popped out a brat.

According to Clark (Claire's Fiance), Mary called Claire about twenty minutes later and a screaming match ensued. Apparently there was a lot of name calling, yelling and the beginnings of WW3 if Clark is to be believed. I'll probably end up getting the details of what happened a little later today or tomorrow but suffice to say that it appears the brown goo has hit the fan.

As for myself, I'm just trying to stay the ehell out this though Mary has called me once (while I was at work) and I'm sure she'll call me again wanting to say how terrible Claire has been to her. Not sure if I should ignore the calls or pick them up since I don't know if I can trust myself to keep my mouth shut.

Things have been testy between Claire and Mary for a while now so we were all holding our breath and waiting for something like this to happen. It's going to get messy and I'm just going to try and stay as far away from the problem as possible.

I think Claire really botched this. I would have probably responded with something like "I'm sorry you can't join us Mary. Hopefully we'll see you at the next get together."

Mary is being a drama llama, but some tact was definitely required to respond to this outburst.

If she calls you, OP, I would maybe listen to her but also try to get one message across to her, something like "You know Mary, we're all getting older and living our different lives. It would be great if we could ALL respect that and not try to make the others feel guilty about eachother's lives, leisure activities or whatever. I think you were both out of line with your comments on FB, but it's clear that you struck first. And even though you directed it at Claire, I felt offense directed at me, too. It was not cool what you said and there was no reason to be so mean. However you and Claire deal with this is fine, but I have to tell you that your comment rubbed me wrong, too."

Wow. Sounds like there are a lot of pent up frustrations all around. Mary shouldn't have made any comment at all beyond, "sorry we can't come, hope y'all have fun." Claire sure did cross the line with her comments and it almost sounds like both of them were itching for a fight. I can't agree that Claire's choice of words was appropriate, but Mary sure seemed to be asking for it.

Should you answer the phone when she calls? I'd probably just avoid her calls for now. I'd want to say that her choice to take on the responsibility of having a child was exactly that: her choice, and that she shouldn't be projecting the consequences of that choice on others. But I'm not sure I'd have the self-control to keep my composure.

Mary has a real problem here. She needs to come to terms with the fact that she is now a parent and as such, she must make sacrifices for her child. If the biggest sacrifice she ever makes is missing an evening out with friends at the piano bar, she's really lucky! But the reality is that it's a lot tougher than that, raising kids, and she needs to let go of all that resentment before her child is old enough to see it. That's a much worse thing to teach your kids than a few curse words in my opinion!

Yeesh. I'm totally on Claire's side here, but she pretty much ruined any chance of having a productive conversation with Mary that she or the rest of you might have had. If there ever was one.

Although, to be honest, I can't imagine being too broken up over losing such an obnoxiously passive-aggressive member of a group of friends. I guess if you've been friends with Mary for a really long time, it might be hard to let go after such a (relatively) short time.